Camlough

Evidence of pre-Christian settlement in and around the village includes several dolmens (portal tombs) on Camlough Mountain. The Hag's Chair in Lislea and the Ballykeel Dolmen also indicate settlement in the area during the Neolithic period. Camlough was an ecclesiastical district in the Barony of Upper Orior and was anciently part of the O'Hanlon's country. At the time of the Plantation of Ulster, 1000 acres of 12 townlands were granted to Henry McShane O'Neill and the village was developed during this period. Camlough village is in the townland of Cross, referring not to a stone monument but to the village crossroads in the north of the townland. In 1620 Camlough Mountain was known as…

Camlough is situated in South Armagh, which was the most militarised region in Western Europe during the Troubles. The region was a stronghold of support for the Provisional IRA, earning it the nickname 'Bandit Country' (see Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade). On 19 May 1981, five British soldiers were killed in an Irish Republican Army (IRA) landmine attack on the Chancellors Road 3 miles from Camlough. The soldiers had been travelling in a Saracen armoured personnel carrier when the bomb exploded. This attack was during the 1981 Irish hunger strike in Maze (HM Prison), and 3 miles from the home of one of the hunger strikers, Raymond McCreesh.